Cryptocurrency exchange OKX took its DEX aggregator platform online after implementing new key security upgrades. This update comes after the company paused its platform in March to prevent misuse by the North Korean hacking group Lazarus.
According to a May 5th post on X, OKX CEO Star Xu said that OKX will restart with a “realtime abuse detecting and blocking system.”
OKX DEX will restart today with realtime abuse detecting and blocking system. OKX Web3 is Chrome and search engine to blockchain. Base on our understanding of onchain data, we help customers access to hundreds chains realtime data, manage multiple chains’ asset and engage with…
— Star (@star_okx) May 5, 2025
On the 17th of March, OKX revealed in a blog post that OKX was the target of a “coordinated effort by Lazarus group” to misuse its DeFi services. Lazarus Group has hacked multiple other cryptocurrency exchanges, such as WazirX and ByBit.
“Recently, we detected a coordinated effort by the Lazarus group to misuse our defi services. At the same time, we’ve noticed an increase in competitive attacks aiming to undermine our work.” The blog post stated.
OKX made the decision to suspend its services after consulting with regulators. To help with the situation, OKX said that they rolled out a hacker address detection system for its Web3 DEX aggregator and a system to track the hacker’s latest addresses so it can block them promptly.
OKX is a decentralized crypto exchange and is the second-largest in terms of trading volume. The platform was created by founder and CEO Star Xu in 2017.